QuakeCon: for Gamers, by Gamers

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Every year, a little town in Texas becomes home to thousands of gamers for four brilliant days of gaming.

By IGN Staff

Mesquite, Texas isn't really the home of anything particularly famous. Or great. Or even really anything that fun most times of the year. For the most part, when you visit what essentially is a big suburb right outside of Dallas, you'll find the typical assortment of Texas strip malls, giant cars, boot stores, and steak houses. But for four days a year, Mesquite becomes the hub for hardcore gamers in the States. In these four days, thousands of gamers will flock to the hometown of id Software, most with their own computers in tow, for the country's biggest LAN party: QuakeCon.

Creatures great and small pour into Mesquite, TX for QuakeCon '02.

I didn't really know what to expect when I walked into the convention for the first time. Still tired from arriving in Dallas at two in the morning, I was a bit groggy and unaware of my surroundings, bumping into walls and accidentally feeling up women as I made my way to the center. Luckily, the shock of transition from the 90 plus degrees of hellish humidity to the ice cave inside the hotel was enough to jolt my eyes open to get a good look at the bustling crowd in the lobby. People were everywhere. More accurately, people and their computers were everywhere. Moving farther into the hotel and closer to the actual convention halls and space, my Activision guide and I suddenly ran across the registration line stretching the length of the building, making more than a few turns along the way. Every one of these people was accompanied by a PC just waiting to get plugged into the biggest LAN that I've ever seen.

But things weren't always this crazy at QuakeCon. The event started back in 1996 with just around 150 people from around the US that had decided it would be fun to get together and hook all of their computers up for a large LAN party to last the weekend. Gaming, gaming, and nothing but gaming. So they convened in Dallas, had a blast, and all promised to do it again the next year.

The line forms early and the monitors are heavy.

And it started growing. Soon enough, id was really paying attention and had decided to dip their fingers in a little bit but keep it in the hands of the fans for the fans. At this point, id has one paid employee set to help set up the convention, with the rest of the show being run completely by volunteers. Eighteen or so core volunteers to set up and run the event and some hundred more to help with everything else at the show itself. It's easy to see how all of the extra help could be needed at this point. Since its humble beginnings, QuakeCon has grown to draw over 3,000 show attendees in 2002, 1,250 of which brought their own computers to set up in the Bring Your Own Computer (BYOC) hall.